The brain is not "burned"! The culprit is someone else!

Review expert: Gu Haitong, deputy chief physician of respiratory medicine department, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University

Recently, there have been more discussions about "two yang". Although many friends do not really have "two yang", but just common pharyngitis or cold, but now the temperature is hot during the day and lower at night, if you are not careful, it is easy to catch a cold.

Cold generally refers to upper respiratory tract infection , and the pathogen is usually respiratory virus. It is a self-limiting disease and can be cured within a week. Cold symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, fatigue, etc. can be relieved by getting more rest and drinking more water. If fever occurs, appropriate medication should be considered for treatment.

Source: pixabay

When it comes to fever, many people seem to be facing a formidable enemy. Some people take medicine even for a low fever, fearing that the fever will damage their brains . Is this true? How should we take medicine when we have a fever? Today, let's talk about fever.

1 The principle of fever

Fever, generally known as "fever" in medicine, refers to the phenomenon that the body temperature exceeds the normal body temperature during regulation. For the sake of convenience, we will still call it "fever" below. In our brain, there is a part called the hypothalamus, which is the body temperature regulation center. When the external environment temperature is too high, the hypothalamus will regulate the body to dissipate heat; when the external environment temperature is too low, the hypothalamus will regulate the body to produce heat, so as to control the body temperature to remain within an appropriate range.

Under normal circumstances, the normal temperature of the human body (oral temperature) is maintained between 36.2℃ and 37.2℃, while the armpit temperature is slightly lower. If the body temperature exceeds the normal temperature range (generally considered to be over 37.4℃ in clinical practice), it means that the body temperature is too high and the body's heat dissipation is lower than the heat production, which means a fever.

Source: pixabay

Fever can be divided into two categories: one is exogenous fever , which is caused by invasion and infection by external bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.; the other is endogenous fever , which is caused by internal dysfunction of the human body. Causes include dysfunction of the body temperature regulation center, neurological dysfunction, endocrine disease, massive cell necrosis, etc.

Fever is the body's emergency response to various types of injuries and is a physiological mechanism of self-protection. Its most direct manifestation is an increase in body temperature, which generates a large amount of heat by burning fat, causing vasoconstriction, rapid breathing and other phenomena.

Fever can also bring many discomforts to the human body, such as headache, fatigue, dry mouth, loss of appetite, muscle aches, etc. In severe cases, it can also cause vomiting, sudden convulsions, etc.

2 Advantages and disadvantages of fever

When we have a fever, our body temperature rises, our heart rate speeds up, and our metabolic rate also increases. This is because the body temperature regulation center senses the invasion of pathogens or damage to the body and issues an order to raise the body temperature.

So having a fever is not a bad thing . If a person has a fever, it means that the immune system is functioning normally. When a person has a fever, the immune system is fighting the virus fiercely, which is a virus-killing process. Because the body temperature rises, it helps to inhibit the growth and reproduction of pathogens in the body, and activates the immune system to produce a response, increasing the reproduction rate of T-lymphocytes and neutrophils that can be used to eliminate pathogens. At the same time, the body will also release immune antibodies to regulate immunity.

All of the above measures are helpful to eliminate pathogens and repair damaged tissues. Therefore, from the perspective of eliminating pathogens, fever is actually beneficial to the body.

From the perspective of unfavorable factors, the main disadvantages of fever include causing discomfort to the patient, such as dizziness, lack of energy, general fatigue, etc. Fever will also accelerate the loss of water in the human body. If water is not replenished in time, it is easy to cause dehydration, and severe cases may even be life-threatening.

In addition, during a fever, the body's metabolism speeds up and the heart rate accelerates, which can easily induce underlying diseases in people who already have cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure, so they need to be particularly vigilant.

Source: pixabay

So, will a fever damage your brain?

Many people, especially parents, are particularly worried about this. The temperature fluctuations of infants and young children are more drastic than those of adults, and children are much more tolerant of fever than adults. As for brain damage, the temperature must reach at least 41.7℃ before the brain cell protein will deteriorate due to high temperature, causing irreversible damage. In real life, infants and young children usually do not have such a high fever, and adults rarely have a body temperature above 40℃.

Under normal circumstances, due to the body's self-protection mechanism, the body's temperature will not be abnormally high. You just need to do the corresponding body temperature monitoring and follow the doctor's advice to take corresponding measures.

There is currently no direct evidence that high body temperature can cause damage to the brain. In most cases, when a fever "burns the brain", the culprit is generally not the fever, but various diseases that cause fever, such as meningitis, pneumococcus, etc. These diseases not only cause fever symptoms, but also infect the nervous system.

In addition, for children under 5 years old, fever may cause febrile convulsions , which are manifested by loss of consciousness, rolling of eyes, muscle twitching, etc. If the febrile convulsion lasts for a long time, it may also cause damage to the brain, which requires extra attention.

So when do you need to take your child to the hospital? Here is the advice: when the child's temperature exceeds 39℃ and is accompanied by one of the following symptoms: very bad spirits, very uncomfortable; a child with a history of high fever convulsions or convulsions without fever; obvious coughing and wheezing; complaining of headaches, earaches or chest pains, abdominal pains, etc.; persistent diarrhea and/or vomiting; rash or bleeding spots on the body; high fever for more than 72 hours, etc.

So, what should we do if we encounter a fever?

3 Correct response to fever

When fever symptoms appear, we can first measure the body temperature with a thermometer. If the temperature is lower than 38.5℃, generally no medication is needed. The discomfort symptoms can be relieved by drinking more hot water, sweating properly, and getting more rest.

It is particularly important to note that if an infant under 2 months old has a fever, or a low-grade fever that lasts for three or four days, no matter how high the temperature is, he or she must go to the hospital in time to rule out other disease factors and avoid further aggravation of the condition.

Source: pixabay

If the body temperature exceeds 38.5℃, you should take antipyretics to reduce the fever. Nowadays, drug research for fever diseases is very mature, and common antipyretic drugs include Tylenol and ibuprofen.

Tylenol , whose chemical name is acetaminophen , reduces fever by inhibiting the synthesis of prostaglandins in the human body, blocking the transmission of fever signals to the body temperature center in the hypothalamus, causing the body temperature regulation point to drop, and then the hypothalamus regulates the body temperature to return to normal levels.

The chemical name of ibuprofen is 2-(4-isobutylphenyl) propionic acid . Its fever-reducing mechanism is similar to that of Tylenol, both of which regulate body temperature by inhibiting the synthesis of prostaglandins.

Ibuprofen ball-and-stick model source: Wikipedia

In addition, if you also have symptoms such as nasal congestion and runny nose, you can choose to use normal saline to wash your nose, which helps dilute the secretions in the nasal cavity and discharge them; if you have a cough, sore throat, etc., you can use light salt water to gargle, or eat some throat lozenges or loquat paste, which can help soothe your throat and reduce airway sensitivity. The menthol ingredient contained in many throat lozenges can provide a cooling sensation and has a certain degree of analgesic effect.

Fever is not actually terrible. As long as you master the correct coping measures and seek medical advice in time, you can avoid serious harm. Finally, the editor would like to remind everyone that although antipyretics are good, you should not take too much. The main function of antipyretics is to relieve the discomfort of the disease, but it cannot cure the disease. What can really eliminate the virus is our own immune system.